ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The message from rural Western North Carolina was blunt Wednesday: Getting to a hospital can take too long, ambulances can be tied up for hours and patients need more choices.
As state health officials listened to competing proposals for 92 additional hospital beds, speakers from Madison, Yancey, Clay and other mountain counties repeatedly reminded them that the debate isn’t just about Asheville.
For rural residents, they said, geography can be a health care issue of its own…